Bollocks!

It's Guy Fawkes Night, and everyone's favorite anthropomorphized British holiday is feeling...well, at best indifferent and at worst pissed off. So, the same as usual.

I do applaud Guy Fawkes's willingness to get involved with his country's political system, but I don't recommend his methods. Instead, since today is Election Day in the United States, I encourage all of my fellow Americans to vote if you possibly can.

Once you've done your civic duty, you can enjoy that other beloved pastime of our country for American Football Day. I'm sure Kevin will, even if the situation isn't appropriate. I mean, he has to take those shoulder pads off occasionally, right?

Fanfic Update!

• Spider Quinn 12 Rise of the Green Goblin, by cfardell_Brenorenz29 (part 8): "Sandi came down to breakfast and saw that her brothers were watching Brittany talk at the Groundhog Day Festival. ‘I doubt she’s the Shadow,’ she thought."


• When Tony Comes Marching Home, by wilddogjj (part 1): "Sandi, Quinn, Stacy and Nicole were gathered in one of the mansion's many sitting rooms having a discussion. While Sandi carried herself with a regal, commanding presence, the other three women looked uncomfortable."

Remember, Remember....

Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire Night as he's more commonly referred to, has a special holiday message for everyone! What? Why, yes, it is "Bollocks!" However could you possibly have guessed?

Back on this side of the Atlantic, Kevin will be celebrating American Football Day by either playing or watching his favorite game. In fact, he might try to do both at once! I'm sure it won't end in a spectacular failure that causes injury to Kevin and amusement to everyone else.

Finally, it's National Redhead Day and we should all wish a happy day to Daria's most well-known redhead...Upchuck! Or maybe Artie! No? Hmm. Ms. Defoe? Oh, what about Jeffy? I suppose Penny counts....

Fandom News!

• Check out the Metalmouth Jack O'lantern Erin M found.

A Tender Family Moment...No Wonder Quinn Left

I see the Morgendorffers (minus Quinn) have gotten all the way into the spirit of Hug Day, which is a minor miracle considering how fond Daria is of physical contact. Get out there and hug someone, but only with their permission!

Give out extra hugs if your favorite sportsball team wins the Super Bowl, which is going on today. Just take care with all those "guys yelling and jumping up and down and banging into stuff" because the last thing you want is a pants-related dipsaster!

Fanfic Update!

• Choice of the Cheerleader 02 - A Fair of Change, by cfardell_Brenorenz29 (part 1): "Brittany heard cracking above her. She broke off from Kevin."


• Daria Ravenclaw: The Legend of Sporting Joe, by Meester_Lee (part 12): "Julia followed her mother and Derrick into the restaurant’s back room and was buffeted by the light and noise level."


• The F Files, by jones2000 (COMPLETE!): "For years the thing Jodie Landon prided herself on was her even keel."

"...it's not how hard you study, it's how hard you play football!"

Today is probably Kevin's favorite anniversary (sorry, Brittany) because on this day in 1967, the first Super Bowl was played. The event became a tradition still celebrated with insanely expensive commercials, heavy drinking, and dip, Stacy, dip!

Oh, and I think there's a football game in there somewhere.

Fandom News!

• You've got until 11:59 PM UTC to nominate stories and artwork for the 2013 Daria Fanworks Awards!


• Congratulations to NightGoblyn, who is getting married!


• Discuss the new season of the show Archer in the Weapons of Mass Distraction forum.


• Astrocar82 posted a new Iron Chef in Creative Writing: Stepmother Daria.

"I've got Super Bowl fever. Go, teams, go!"

Quinn: So Stacy showed me her outfit for Sunday and she had, like, this solid cream-colored top and I said, "Stacy, it's a Super Bowl party. Guys yelling and jumping up and down and banging into stuff and dip, Stacy, dip!" So she decided to go with a print instead. You know what I always say. Dip is short for dip-saster!

Helen: That's wonderful, honey.

Daria: Did you know Ms. Li called a school review meeting for Super Bowl Sunday?

Helen: Really? That's odd. Well, maybe she's not a football fan.

Daria: I think she's trying to pull something. If I were you, I'd make it a point to go to that meeting and pay extra-close attention.

Helen: Daria, you know your father and I have to go to Eric's Super Bowl party.

Jake: What?!

Helen: Or I'll look like I'm not a team player.

Jake: I have to spend another Super Bowl with a bunch of freakin' lawyers?! And their freakin' lawyer highballs and lawyer cigars?! Lousy stuck-up....

Helen: Jake! I called in some favors around the office and found five people who promised they'd talk to you.

--"Fizz Ed"

Today is the day of the eagerly-awaited (by some) Super Bowl! Whether you watch it for the game, watch it for the commercials, or take advantage of the empty stores to get your grocery shopping done, have a great day. Or at least a better day than Jake probably had.

The Other Bad Todd

In Daria lore, there are Two Bad Todds. One is well known from Beavis and Butt-head : Todd Ianuzzi, a brutal thug and gang leader. You may remember him beating up B&B a few times. Daria was never around him, smart kid. Great for fanfiction if you need muscle to get shot or stomped on.

And then there was Todd K. Feichmann.

You are very unlikely to have heard of this Todd (though I did mention him in this blog a long while ago). He was described only on old MTV Daria websites, and only the WayBack Machine can bring his tale to the present day. Here's what I've learned about him. Long-time fans might remember some of this.

This Todd is primarily known for creating the Lawndale High School website in 1994, for having been picked on a lot by high-school jocks, and for the revenge he took later on. About him, Jodie and Mack wrote:

The Lawndale High School Web site was established in 1994 by Todd K. Feichmann. At that time it consisted of his resume and a 3000-word essay on mutant battle psychology as encountered in the first six levels of DOOM. The scepter was passed to a small cadre of initiates after his graduation, but his spirit and love of nanotechnology still inspires the site today. We hope he is staying on his medication and feeling better about the fact that the simple elegance of UNIX is lost on the vast majority of today's computer users.

What we know about Todd comes from these webpages, some of which are difficult to access. If you click on a link and the webpage vanishes and is replaced by a modern MTV 404 page, try hitting ESCAPE as soon as the old page appears, to freeze it.

As this page shows, Todd created a special website called "Cleatopia.com" for guys he intensely disliked, so they could play fantasy football (Todd's idea of fantasy football, that is). On the webpage is written:

Hello, Kevin! Welcome to the first fantasy football site devoted to local high school jocks like yourself, who have tortured me mercilessly for years, rattling my will and shattering my fragile psyche until all that's left is a resentful, hypersensitive outcast who harbors vengeful visions of triumphant payback. Now I can finally suck your wallets dry and prove my intellectual superiority at the same time.

We also have real time stats, destructive viruses, and annoying clone bots for you to download. Have fun!

Founder and Visionary Todd K. Feichmann

To get to this page, you read Kevin's webpage first, where he dimly writes:

The first time I told Brittany I was spending a lot of time playing Fantasy Football she slapped me. So I explained all I meant was I like to make up imaginary teams for make believe football leagues, and it has nothing to do with daydreaming about naked cheerleaders doing pyramid formations. But then I started to think about naked cheerleaders doing pyramid formations and I guess I got a funny look on my face and she slapped me again.

Now I'll have plenty of time this weekend to check out player stats and injury reports and make trades and rethink my roster and order an apology bouquet from 1-800-GROVEL.

My fantasy football team is kind of like the imaginary friend I had when I was little (his name was Sporty and he was always sticking lima beans up my nose) except there are more of them and they don't hate my Dad. I miss Sporty.

I wonder where he is now?

When I first got into fantasy sports I used to play in leagues based on the NFL, or NCAA conferences. But now there's a new fantasy league that's about what I know best: Carter County High School Football! Did I mention that I'm the QB?

See, this kid named Todd K. Feichmann who helped me with my web page last year decided to put his smartness to non-nerdy use to start the league. And he only charges $29.99 to join: he says he needs the money for something called a particle decelebrator. Some kind of fancy vacuum cleaner, I guess.

Anyway, I'd really be kicking butt in the league if only I hadn't picked myself in the first round of the draft. I would trade myself now but no one wants me. I throw too many interceptions, sometime I get confused and call out phone numbers instead of plays, and I keep tripping over my laces (can't I remember to doubleknot?) I suck, I suck, I suck!

Maybe I shouldn't have drafted me. I guess football is kind of like dating: sometimes you choose the most obvious person under pressure and then you're stuck with them. At least that's what I heard Brittany telling the other cheerleaders. Then they all looked at me and shook their heads.

So Todd had his revenge on jocks, and Kevin never knew it. Sometimes that's for the best.


Wonder what Todd's doing now...


Let's check out the new fanfiction while we think.

PPMB

• NEW! Anti-trope, by Pinkminx (Part 1): Forgive me, I think I may need to backtrack a little, let me introduce myself. My name is Dean Morgendorffer, I'm a seventeen year old high school student and proud Lawndalian, okay I lied; I'm not proud to live in Lawndale, but it sure as hell beat the alternative.
• NEW! Fat Man's Grave, by TAG and Brother Grimace (Parts 1 and 2): Charles Ruttheimer the Third, man of mystery and adventure, as thoroughly and completely disguised from view as The Shadow, clouding the minds of men. Too long have my talents been wasted on childish trivia, too long have the world’s enigmas gone unsolved. It is time for my deeds to be writ large on the world, time for...
  
• Finn Morgendorffer 7: History on Skates, by HolyGrail2007 (Part 2): Mr. DeMartino seemed to be devoting his attention to cardio exercises, Finn noticed once he brought himself up to the weight room. Finn wondered briefly why Mr. D simply wouldn’t join a gym and get a trainer for such conditioning, but Finn reasoned that it would require payment, and he certainly wouldn’t do that.
• NEW! Legion of Lawndale Heroes Mini: Network Connections, by Brother Grimace (COMPLETE!): “Mister Mackenzie!” Mack Mackenzie instinctively tensed for a moment as a very familiar voice rang out from behind. “Uh, hello, Ms. Li!” he said.
• NEW! Regifted, by Ajar (Part 19): “Daria goes to Grove Hills now,” said Jane. “Remember?” “Right,” said Kevin. “It's a cooking school and someone poached her eggs, or something.” Jane humored Kevin: “Yeah, next week she's learning coq au vin.” “So they have sex ed in cooking school, too?” said Kevin.
  
• Sinspiration, by Vlora (Part 23): She laughed inwardly for a second before managing to get her legs over the edge of the bed. Her escape was almost complete until Trent pulled her back, keeping her firmly in place within his arms. Perhaps he thought she was someone better looking, older, maybe he thought she was Monique. "Morning Daria," he muttered through closed eyes and a pleased grin.

PPMB turns 10 years old today! Hooray!

Mack was a Running Back, and More Late-Breaking Football News

And another marvelous thing I found with the WayBack Machine was a webpage that, skipping the details, listed some of the high school football teams that the Lawndale Lions have played in their area, with the names and positions of some of the best players. The webpage is supposed to show Kevin Thompson's fantasy football team, which he staffed with people he apparently knew from the games he had played. However, the players, teams, and schools were also known to the sadistic student who programmed the game for Kevin, because Kevin used to torment him for being a nerd.

Without further ado, here are the (as far as we know) best high-school football players in and around Lawndale High School, plus their positions and teams.

• Theodore Wozniak (QB-Oakwood Taproots)
• Trevor Dinsmoor (WR-Briarwood Beefalo)
• Byron Spanky (WR-Eagleton Elephant Seals)
• Michael Jordan Mackenzie (RB-Lawndale Lions) AH-HA!
  
• Etan O'Malley (RB-Oakwood Taproots)
• Afolabi Obalade (TE-Lawrenceville Locusts)
• Kevin Thompson (QB-Lawndale Lions)
• Howie Scrapple (WR-Eagleton Elephant Seals)
• Brandon Balder (WR-Oakpine Native Americans)
• Bruno Wambolt (WR-Mo Udall High Marmosets)
• Al Alberdingk-Thijm (RB-Briarwood Beefalo)
• Bob Jones (RB-Lakeland Bichon Frises)
• Kyle Fant (RB-Oakwood Taproots)
• Lincoln Hwang (PK-Mo Udall High Marmosets)
• Simek Pletka (PK-Lawrenceville Locusts)

I sense a certain tongue-in-cheek quality to the list, but I see some people referenced here that we've heard of before: Mack (running back for the Lawndale Lions, plus captain I guess), and Teddy Wosniak, who is the QB for Oakwood. But wasn't Sam Stack the Oakwood QB? Maybe one replaced the other, who knows.

The demonic fantasy football game, which was computerized, also spit out this list of player injuries for Kevin, all written up by the sadistic programmer:

• Brendan Mulrooney (Lawrenceville) dislocated his shoulder while participating in an exuberant "high five." He is currently resting at home on a bunch of fluffy pillows.
• Theodore Wozniak (Oakwood) has recovered from a strained groin muscle which Brittany Taylor (Head Cheerleader of Lawndale) seemed to know an awful lot about. Hmmmm...
• Manu Breeze (Briarwood) is done for the year due to an outburst of Roid Rage, which left the rest of the squad with minor cuts and bruises. He is also suffering from liver damage, premature baldness, and shrunken testicles. Coincidence, I guess.
• Howie Scrapple (Eagleton) mistook the bleachers for a 7-man sled during practice. He was placed on injured reserve due to the fact that he now has a dent in his head.
• Ryan Tetherhooks (Oakpine) was sidelined when run over by a field stripper last Thursday. He will be out indefinitely with this like gigantic body cast with so much room you can sign no matter how big you write. Hear that, Taproots? Ha ha!
• Kevin Thompson (Lawndale) is currently nursing a sore facial cheek but is expected to play on Saturday. If I screw up again I'll have to get like a glass eye and join the Witness Rejection Program. [Kevin wrote the last line. He had told Brittany he was playing fantasy football, and she slapped him for fantasizing (about other girls, she assumed).]
  

Again, more tongue-in-cheek goodness from the game programmer, whose name is Todd K. Feichmann. We will return to Todd in a later posting. He's rather interesting.

And Brittany really is the head cheerleader for Lawndale, just as we'd thought!

It's SUPER BOWL MGMOMGWTFVIII!

This is post #999 on this blog, and it marks the annual Super BowelBowl played every year on an annual yearly basis in this country (meaning this one, 'Murrika). The teams playing are, um, one from a red state and one from a blue state, or as close to that as can be found. The winners receive new girlfriends and SUVs. The losers are sent to Loserville.

I think I got that right. Changes are welcome. Put them in the Comments section where I can delete them later.

What else is going on.... what are you doing today to celebrate Daria's semi-victory over the forces of commercialism and greed, as depicted in "Fizz Ed"? Inquiring minds want to know.

And It's Autumn, and That Means . . . Oh, No.

Yes, it's football season once again (American non-soccer to you Europeans, who by the way lost the Ryder Cup, and I could hear people screaming from Valhalla all the way to my house). The Lawndale Lions shout their enthusiasm silently in this still from "Daria!"

Today is also the 29th anniversary of the mysterious Vela Incident, which might have been an atomic bomb. Oh, who are we kidding, of course it was. But whose? I remember reading about this years ago, and people said it was just a meteor and I thought, no, that's not possible. Then I heard there were two explosions on different days, then I heard they were Israeli/ South African nuclear tests, so I dunno, whatever. Can this be fitted into a Daria story?

One page in DariaWiki has gotten frequent updates lately. See if you can guess which one before you click here.

The SFMB commentary thread on BlackHole's "Size Does Matter" continues to grow. Feel free to join the fun.

Nothing new on Lawndale Online for a while. Hmmm.

Now 978 fans on the Daria Fan Club. Let's see just a little more action here, could we?

Lots of new fanfic, but I'll wait until tomorrow to look at that. Party on, folks.

Cleatopia.com - More Than It Seems

The Cleatopia.com fantasy-football site to which Kevin's webpage is linked turns out to be payback from a student named Todd that Kevin has been tormenting for years for being a nerd. The text below explains all. The link to Kevin's fantasy team, the Pups, reveals little; no items were saved by the WayBack Machine. Wonder if Todd would be good as a date for Daria.

*

Hello, Kevin! Welcome to the first fantasy football site devoted to local high school jocks like yourself, who have tortured me mercilessly for years, rattling my will and shattering my fragile psyche until all that's left is a resentful, hypersensitive outcast who harbors vengeful visions of triumphant payback. Now I can finally suck your wallets dry and prove my intellectual superiority at the same time.

We also have real time stats, destructive viruses, and annoying clone bots for you to download. Have fun!

Founder and Visionary Todd K. Feichmann

Meet Coach Gibson . . . I think

The last of the "Before They Were Daria Stars" flipbook characters on MTV's Daria site is somehow misidentified as Burnout Chick, which she . . . er, he definitely isn't. He is obviously a high-school sports coach who bears a resemblance to the heavy-set faculty member seen on rare occasions in the original series. We get a good glimpse of this latter fellow (short light brown hair, no mustache, blue sweatshirt, whistle on chain, gray sweatpants, sneakers) marching with the striking teachers in "Lucky Strike" (at far left in picture), and we have a distant view of the same figure in "Fizz Ed," standing on the edge of the football field during scrimmage practice. A coach he must be. Maybe he got tired of the mustache.

In The Daria Diaries, Mack makes reference to a coach named Mr. Gibson who is "almost done paying his debt to society" and had assured Mack that when the recruiter used the word "kickback," he thought the man had said "kickoff." It isn't clear who was running the football team while the coach was "paying his debt," but the two MTV books reflect material from the first two seasons of Daria, and the coach appears in the last, fifth season. (CORRECTION: I just spotted him in the Assembly scene of "Esteemsters," on the stage with Ms. Li. Oh, well.) We can hypothesize that the coach seen in the show is Gibson, and between the time he appeared in Esteemsters and the fifth season he got a brief government-funded vacation in the Big House. The character seen in the flipbook could be him as well, before he went to the hoosegow and shaved off his mustache. He remained a background character throughout.

On a related topic, note the presence of two black teachers among the marchers in "Lucky Strike": one short and heavy with glasses and one tall and thin. One of them must be the mathematics teacher, since we never see one in the series, and the other must teach . . . computers? Humanities? Mass media? Band? French? Where the heck are all of the Lawndale High teachers?